All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

T.E. Lawrence

Will and I passed a place called Refreshing Mountain on our way back from taking the dogs hiking. We were curious about what it was and looked it up. What we thought initially was a resort turned out to be a retreat and adventure center. Intrigued, we looked up what adventures we could try and were super surprised. They featured zip lining, obstacle courses, archery, and even horseback riding. We added it to the list of places in Lancaster County we wanted to visit and then…forgot about it for a year. Oops.

Once my competition season as over we decided to cram as much fun into the summer as possible. We had something planned every single weekend from seeing The Book of Mormon to dinner with friends to mini vacations and trips across the country. When we were talking about places we could go that were close by we realized we had forgotten about Refreshing Mountain and decided to finally plan a visit.

It turns out it was a good thing we waited, otherwise we never would’ve gotten the experience we did yesterday. Part of their fall zip lining adventures featured throwing pumpkins at targets while you’re in the middle of a zip line. Umm…. YES PLEASE. We immediately booked it.

The drive there was an easy and scenic 35 minute drive. We chose the 3:30pm adventure time slot and it worked perfectly. Our dogs were sleepy, we got everything done around the house, and then we got to have an adventure date complete with dinner afterwards. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. We arrived and had some confusion parking, but we ended up parking in the lot we were supposed to be in. The buildings weren’t labeled super well, so we guessed at where we were supposed to go and ended up finding the office on our first try.

The check-in process was extremely easy since we signed waivers online. We were directed to a different building and got geared up. Each zip line tour has two guides, one to lead and one to direct the rest of the participants and bring up the rear. We got to do 7 zip lines total and all of them varied in length. The first 3 were pumpkin-less which was still super fun since we were getting used to everything but we did get to run across some sky bridges which was a fun little excursion to spice up the waiting between zipping.

THEN CAME THE PUMPKINS. I thought we’d only get to throw pumpkins while we were moving, but we got to throw one pumpkin while we were on the platform waiting to zip and another one when we were in the air. As it turns out, I have horrible aim and only hit half of the 6 targets. There’s just something so satisfying about throwing a pumpkin with full force at a target and seeing it split open that made my day.

All of the zip lines had various heights, speeds, and lengths and that made each one fun in its own way. We were in a group of 8 (that’s the max number of people) so we did spend some time waiting. I loved it though. The views were pretty and we were having a great time together and with the other people even though the didn’t know them. Our guides were funny and great to talk to as well. Overall, it took us about 1.5 hours and it was so worth it. On the last few zip lines we learned how to zip upside down.

After the final zip line we were on a tall platform and had to belay off to get to the ground. It’s very weird just stepping off of a platform and convincing yourself the rope will catch you, but it was fun.

All in all, we would absolutely come back to try some of the other adventures they have available! It does cater more to small and large groups of students and there were TONS of families there doing activities. I love that it’s such a family-friendly place, but I’m glad the adventure we were on had only adults in it. Everything was super well maintained and it was clear our guides knew this sport inside and out. If you’re looking for a fun half-day adventure in the Lancaster, PA area, I would absolutely recommend trying this place out!